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A day after the Election Commission of India accorded AAP the status of a national party, Gopal Rai, a member of the party’s highest decision-making body — the Political Affairs Committee — told The Hindu in an interview that AAP will fight from a limited number of seats, unlike in 2014, when the party fought from over 400 Lok Sabha constituencies.
Mr. Rai said AAP sees the BJP as its opponent in the 2024 general election. On the question of whether AAP would consider getting into an alliance with the Congress for the 2024 general election, Mr. Rai said, “Our stand will depend on how the situation emerges over the next six to seven months.”
Asked whether the party sees itself as replacing the Congress as the main opposition party, Mr. Rai did not give a direct answer and said it depends on who people give their mandate to. “Our aim is to replace the party in Centre which is destroying the democracy,” he added.
The senior AAP leader said the party is working to build its organisation in the four States that will go to polls later this year — Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. AAP fought in all four States in 2018 but couldn’t win a single seat.
When asked whether the party will support K. Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, as AAP is not fighting in the State, he said, “AAP will stand with and support like-minded people in Telangana.”
Mr. Rai said the party’s immediate focus will be on a pan-India membership drive announced by the party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday.
The senior leader also said that AAP’s main challenge is the lack of funds.
“Funds are a challenge for us. First, building an organisation and running campaigns with limited resources is difficult. That too when the other party has so much money. Second, the BJP, in power at the Centre, wants to destroy us at any cost. They have already jailed two of our leaders,” the AAP leader said.
Mr. Rai also said, that becoming a national party will help AAP get rid of its “Dilli ki party [a party from Delhi]” tag. “Earlier, people used to see us as a ‘Dilli ki party’. Now they will see us as a national party. It will instil more confidence in the common person and our workers, and help us in the 2024 Lok Sabha election as well as in poll-bound States.”
Talking about how becoming a national party will help the AAP, Mr. Rai said, “There are two benefits of becoming a national party. First is that of perception. Earlier people used to see us as ‘Dilli ki party’ (a party from Delhi). Now they will see us as a national party and their confidence in us will also increase. It will help us especially when we fight the 2024 Lok Sabha election and also in elections in other States. Workers’ confidence also increases and people will also feel that this is a big party and it will now expand across the country.”
When asked about the party using a lot of Hindu symbols — from saying the party is building Ram Rajya in Delhi to building a replica of the Ram Temple in Delhi — and on the other hand, keeping silent on issues related to Muslims such as Bilkis Bano case, Mr. Rai said, “Our election or political campaign is not on any symbols (Hindu or Muslim). With different things, we do different initiatives and experiments. But our political agenda is always to help with people’s necessities such as education or health.”
Mr. Rai further said, “Many types of statements are made by both parties. On the one hand they say that we are using Hindu symbols and we are a party for Hindus. Then they say that we increased the salary of maulanas. These are the gimmicks they use.”
